


Lost and Found

by Crux01



Category: Homeland
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 15:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5591866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crux01/pseuds/Crux01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My attempt to find a way out of the hellhole those asshole HL writers have sent us to! Written for the Fuck that! fanfic prompt by laure011</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost

The darkness was calling to him. 

He belonged to it and it was summoning him home. The sweet seduction in its appeal was too much for him to bear. It was so enticing; to give it all up completely. To stop clinging to this pained existence. To simply let go and let the bleak oblivion take him and with it all his fear, all his failure and all his agony.

How easy it would be to slide away to nothing, to simply let it all go. It was mesmerising in its simplicity and so alluring. He was giving up, accepting the darkness and yet, as he felt his mortal coil finally unwinding and his grip slipping away, the blinding light bathed his face in the warmth of life and he heard the words calling him back.

As he fought to stay alive, his consciousness came in waves, sometimes he could sense people, hear them and make out words, even recognise voices but then they would dissipate like water on a beach after the wave has broken. It was then that the deep blackness swept forward once more, biting deep, striking at the very heart of him. Promising a relief, it mocked him with the beauty of acceptance, tempted him with an end to the futility of his pathetic existence, and offered him the ultimate victory over everything that ailed him. Why should he fight it?

And he was so very close, so many times, as he lay in the hospital bed, machines whirring, lights blinking, hope fading. It taunted his unconscious with vivid nightmarish images from his memory that were as real as the moment when he first suffered them; gas burning his lungs until they would not function, drowning slowly, a fog fingering through his mind to claim him and his iron control, his sanctuary in an uncontainable world, slipping until it was utterly destroyed and he was helpless in every possible way.

With every horrific memory, the thread that held him to life was fraying and he could do nothing. He would give it up; he had made that bargain long ago. He wanted only an end.

And yet he did not.

One thing held him back. One thought, one moment strengthened the unravelling cord, and he held on to it with the sheer desperation of the dying man he was, clutching it to him, playing it over, that golden moment, from even before the light, six precious words that kept drawing him back, that kept giving him the strength when all else was lost....... her words; 'I'm here waiting for you'......

He could not remember a name, could not see a face, all he had were those words. He had tried to follow them. Tried to find a way out and for a moment he had made it, made it long enough to see her but then it had all been brutally ripped away from him, lost to darkness, all save those precious words. 

And then afterwards, he had had no sense of time, it could have been seconds or years, but the bright light had warmed his face and scorched his eyelids even though they were closed. A light that breached the darkness that stalked him, a light that burned brave and true in the gathering gloom. A light that gave him the courage to fight, to believe that this was not the end and made him refuse to become a victim. A light that brought him back from the very brink, even as the darkest night threatened to take him again and again and again.

And finally, it gave him the strength to open his eyes, it pulled him back. He believed she would be there, that she would explain it all to him. That he would understand the reasons and find the courage to accept what had been done to him.

But when he finally pulled himself upwards, found his way back, painfully managed to prise open his leaden eyelids, she was not there. Nobody was there. He was alone, all alone and it did not get any better, he waited and waited for her to come, to explain, to set his world to rights, but she did not come. 

Nobody came, not anybody who cared.

The doctors and nurses and other medical professionals came of course, but they didn't talk. They went through the motions of looking after him, cleaning, re-arranging his dead limbs and when the life finally started to creep back into his battered body massaging it and coaching him to do the battery of exercises they had devised but they did not care. Not one of them cared. Each face wore exactly the same expression of antiseptic duty, they did what they had to but all kept their distance, none of them spoke save to give direction. They never held eye contact with him, always shifting their glances uncomfortably away. Never answered the questions he tried to croak at them. Instead they all handled him with practised precision as if he was a volatile substance that would explode at the slightest unplanned movement. They called him by a name he did not recognise and silently implored him to recover so their interaction with him would be done and they could move on to another occupant of the bed.

And so he simply was. A broken soldier being meticulously melded back together by a system which would not hesitate to throw him back into the brutality of war once he was sufficiently mended, and until then saw no reason to give him any sip of the milk of human kindness.

And still he waited. Trying to understand with a brain made dense from his suffering which could not think. He despaired. Why couldn't he fucking remember? He sensed he had lost something of infinite value but could decipher no more. Something that had made him cling to life when the only sensible option had been to give it up. His frustration was unwavering and overwhelming.

Then, one day he had a visitor. 

An older man whose appearance sent a spark of recognition and connected memories zipping through his brain. A name flapped faintly like a butterfly and hovered in his consciousness but before he could harness his muscles and vocalise it, it had gone again. He gulped and eyed the man who smiled crookedly at him.

"Glad to see you are awake. The doctor says that you're improving every day, getting stronger." The man looked around the surroundings his face contorted with distaste. "Must be a fucking nightmare cooped up in here."

"Daaaar?" He managed to finally control his mouth to say the name as it fluttered back into his thoughts again.

Dar Adal looked startled and was unable to mask the wave of sick sympathy that washed across his features. He reached out a cold hand as if to offer comfort but hesitated before it touched the pale hand on the bed as if he would catch something contagious. 

Dar Adal pulled away and snorted. "It won't be long, not until we get you up and at 'em once more."

He closed his eyes. A familiar pain had begun to throb in the centre of his forehead. It had happened many times before, the prelude to a seizure; soon a wave of nausea and uselessness would claim him. He would fight for breath, his ragged lungs unable to function and his muscles would turn to granite. All he could do was lie, vulnerable and helpless as the doctors, pushing Dar Adal unceremoniously aside, rushed in to treat him.

Later, after they had filled him with the drugs that calmed him and left him rigid and motionless on the bed, breathing in pure oxygen, unattached words drifted into his room from the corridor outside. He recognised Dar Adal's voice, angry, exasperated and resentful, ".....can't even talk......fucking vegetable....retraining...." And the calmer, more considered tones of his doctor...."takes time.....no promises....."

He lay awake, fighting the fingers of dark despair that lurked at the edges of his consciousness, forcing himself to remember, willing his brain to function as it once had, forcing himself to see. Why couldn't he fucking remember? But for all his burning desperation, he could not. Although he had recognised Dar and had managed to bring forth his name, nothing else came. Nothing to free him from this nightmare of not knowing, nothing that he could grasp that would help him understand. 

And again, rather than give himself to the lingering darkness, he chose the hard way; he looked for the light. He looked for her. A solitary tear escaped to meander down the sheer sharpness of his cheekbone. He raised his legs, rolled over on to his side and curled into a ball, bit his lip until he tasted blood and forced his eyes shut, forcing his mind to silently say the words, her words, 'I'm here waiting for you,' like a litany against the darkness as if it, and only it, held the key to unlock him from his prison. Until he finally fell asleep.

After that no one else came. 

The days drew on, one merging into another until none mattered. His physical strength returned in part and he worked hard at his exercises. He would never be as good as before but he was improving; his seizures were less frequent and less physically debilitating than they had been. His lungs though still ragged had loosened considerably and his voice, although he used it very little, had lost the rasp from the ventilator. The doctor began to guardedly talk about him leaving, about further rehabilitation taking place elsewhere and he went along with it because he had nothing else.

But the hole in his soul did not mend as easily as the damage to his body and his frustration festered. Why couldn't he fucking remember!

And then one day it all changed. His world tilted on its axis. He found his purpose and his meaning. He found a reason for his continued existence because one day he fucking remembered.......


	2. Found

He should not have come. 

He knew it and yet he could not control the impulse. He should not be waiting for her. Hiding in her bedroom like some fucking sexual predatory monster. He had heard her come in, talking reassuringly to her child. He had waited in the dark, it seemed so fitting, as she had played with the child, the murmurings of both mother and child floating up to him like a soft balm.

His recently re-acquired memory reminded him of a similar experience from years before. He had sat in Estes' bedroom, lurking in the shadows, waiting. But then he had had his trusted and silenced Glock pistol, laid menacingly across his knees. Now he had no weapon, he was completely defenceless against what was going to happen. Then he had been intent on saving the life of a man he hated, only for her. But now, on this night, he only wanted to save his own.

Bath time was filled with much giggling and splashing but thankfully confined to the bathroom. She had not come into her bedroom yet and he did not know what he would do when she did. He must look a frightening sight, dressed all in black. Ruefully he looked down at the muddied knees of his jeans. Climbing the yard fence had not gone as well as it once would have and he had ended up on his knees in a puddle, gasping for breath and trying to slow his gasping, lurching lungs. 

He did not want to scare her, Christ anything but that, but he had been unable to conceive of another way to see her in private, where the eyes and ears of his enemies would not be searching for him. So here he sat.

She was reading a good night story, a well-loved one judging by the enthusiastic responses Franny was giving. Again he questioned himself. What was he doing here? She obviously did not want him. Had not stayed to see him recover, so why didn't he just leave it?

He drew in a deep breath, trying to still his racing heart. He couldn't go, not yet. He had to understand. Had to find out why she had promised and not delivered. If she explained it to him, he would be able to walk away. He would be able to go back to the life that waited for him and give himself to the blackness once more.

The door to the bedroom opened, the light from the hallway slicing into the room darkening the shadowy corner where he sat. She was humming softly to herself, peeling off her cardigan to throw it on the bed, as she entered. Turning to click on the light switch, she froze as she became aware of another presence in the room. She stopped perfectly silhouetted in the piercing light as her eyes widened in fear and surprise.

She looked older than his memory pictured her, her untidy hair darker and shorter and her weary eyes rimmed by black circles of sleeplessness, washed out and lonely, but making the best of it for her child. He sensed her body was full to bursting with hurt and loss which manifested in a restless energy that she had apparently given up trying to control.

"What the fuck?!' she hissed. Her eyes flashed around the room. He could almost hear her thoughts, gauging if she could make it to her bedside table, her initial surprise quickly overrun by her survival instinct. She was moving and then as quickly as she had started her motion ceased and she turned back to stare at him, eyes widening further in disbelief.

"Quinn?" she breathed.

His throat tightened and he nodded slowly. That was the name he had been missing, the name he had been searching for all this time and when she said it, memories flooded him in such a torrent he thought he would surely drown. He fought to keep his head above water, to keep control as the wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm him.

She was shaking her head, her chin beginning to quiver as she searched for words, obviously floundering as badly as he. Finally she whispered. "But......it can't be."

He prayed his voice would work. "Peter Quinn," he said slowly, feeling the familiar way his mouth moved; strange that such a small thing should feel like home.

She was staring at him wide-eyed, wild in her disbelief. She ran her hand neurotically through her hair. "I don't understand. You were dead....." Tears were forming in her eyes.

"Mama!" Came a voice from down the hallway.

At the call from her other life Carrie pulled herself together before him. She sniffed. "I have to see to Franny." She turned at the door. "You will still be here when I come back?"

He nodded. "I'm no hallucination," he affirmed although he had difficulty in getting out all of the syllables.

She hesitated a second and then Franny's voice came again and with a slight smile of disbelief she was gone.

He sat in the chair, forcing muscles that were stiff past the point of granite to loosen. Letting go of the breath, his lungs had been unwilling to part with, and shaking with feelings he could not comprehend.

She was more together when she came back; her hair appeared neater as if she had brushed it, more like he remembered. Her eyes suddenly alive, full of hope and questions, drilled into him as she moved to sit on the bed in front of him. Hesitantly she reached out and laid a gentle hand on his knee, oblivious to the dirt. "Thank God, you're real," she breathed. "I've been taking my meds like a good girl but......" She stopped and snorted, again tears welling up. "Fuck, I've missed you, Quinn."

She was here. She was touching him. He couldn't find any words. He wanted to move closer; the memory of their hug at her father's funeral leapt into his head. He wanted to touch her, taste her, inhale her, possess her and the feeling was so very strong that it took everything he was to hold himself immobile in the chair, staring only at her hand where it rested on his leg.

She was shaking her head again. "I can't believe....." 

He cleared his throat, searching for words, any words. In the end he settled on, "Is Franny OK? I didn't mean to frighten you."

Carrie hesitated. She was staring at him, fighting to understand but also becoming aware of the differences in him, the contrasts with the man she had known; his broken voice, the confident and competent stillness lost and replaced by a continual thrumming shake of broken nerves through his body, his slow, jerky movements and the rattle of his lungs. He could see the understanding in her eyes; he was damaged it was true but no where near as badly as she had been led to believe. She pulled herself back to the present and her daughter. "She's fine. Just heard our voices, wondered who was here." She squeezed his knee. "I told her a very dear old friend."

He nodded. Glanced awkwardly around the room, looking for a conversation, he clutched at the one thing that had brought them together in the first place. "You still in?"

Carrie recoiled. "Me, no way. Not after what happened. I took your advice."

"My advice?"

"Yeah, Dar Adal gave me your letter."

His heart was thumping frighteningly fast as emotion washed over him and he was really going under this time. Hold on, he kept telling himself. "My letter?" he managed to respond.

Carrie nodded. "The one you wrote before you went to Syria. He told me there was no hope for you. That's why I believed you were...... you were gone."

She read the fucking letter! She knew everything. He tried to remember what he had written. Shit, it seemed so long ago, another lifetime, so much had happened in between. He remembered he had written it from the heart, with words that had come to him inexplicably, articulating feelings that he could never normally admit existed let alone give a voice to, in the belief she would not read it until he was dead. How in hell could he still be here and yet she had read everything. He felt the telltale pain like a drill biting into the centre of his forehead. Not now! He screamed at himself. I need to keep it together. She already thinks I'm weak as hell, I can't let her see..........

But he was wheezing and fighting for his breath, limbs shuddering, he doubled up and fell forward to the floor as the seizure took him. 

"Quinn?" Her voice was frightened as she knelt before him. "What the fuck? What can I do?"

He shook his head. "OK....just need to...........breathe.....it'll pass." He mumbled through the choking of his screaming lungs.

She was holding him tight, stroking his back soothingly and whispering to calm him as if he was a skittish colt but miraculously it was working. His breathing was slowing and his breaths getting deeper as he mimicked her long intakes. His muscles stopped spasming and did not stiffen and he was lying quietly on the floor with her so close beside him.

"Fuck, Quinn," she breathed, her relief evident. "Next time if you want a hug can't you just ask like any normal human being? Instead of doing fucking dying fish impressions?"

His face cracked into an unfamiliar expression and it took him some time to realise he was smiling, be it very ruefully. 

"You read my letter," he finally queried, his voice raw, face suddenly grim. 

She nodded, unwilling to say more, since she had witnessed the seizure the previous discussion had brought on. Her eyes were wide with shared pain and she reached out her hand to touch him again.

"Fucking Dar Adal," he spat as the strength returned to him and he managed to sit up with her help.

"It doesn't matter," she soothed, not letting go of him as he moved. She seemed to need to keep touching him.

"It does," he argued. Even through the wet wool that his mind now resembled, he understood as well as Carrie what had happened. "He's played me like a goddamn moron. Played us both and it has got to stop."

"I don't want you to do anything stupid, Quinn,' Carrie was deadly serious.”I've spent too much time mourning you and now I've got you back, I won't let you go, not again."

He climbed stiffly to his feet, ignoring the warm feeling radiating from the pit of his stomach that her words brought, he focused instead on using the energy that his anger gave him. "I'm AWOL, Carrie. I only came to see you were OK and to ask you something. If I don't go back....." He left the sentence hanging as they stared at each other for long moments.

"What did you want to ask?" Carrie enquired finally.

He drew in a long breath. "Doesn't matter now." He tried to look away but she held him with the power of her stare.

"If I have learnt anything from what has happened, it's that we spent too long not telling each other what is important, Quinn," she said firmly. "That's why we kept missing each other. I won't allow it to happen again." She held his hands, gently eased him down to the sit on the edge of the bed. "Ask me."

He gulped, bit his lip nervously. "I wanted to know why," he began but stopped as the words failed him once more and then blurted. "It was dark and I was sliding away and then you called me back. You said 'I'm here waiting for you.' And yet when I came back, you weren't." His voice tremored on the last word as he looked away from her, blinking his eyes furiously and violently gulping in air, desperately trying to hide all emotion from her.

"Oh, Quinn," she gathered him into her arms, pulling him close. "I am so sorry for it all, for everything you have suffered. If I could go back, if I could change it all, I would. You know that don't you?" Tears were running unashamedly down her cheeks, her chin quivering. "You cared for me so well and when you needed me, I let you down. I left you to suffer when I could have saved you. I am so sorry."

She buried her head deep into his shoulder and he held her tightly. "Doesn't matter," he kept murmuring as he rested his chin gently on the top of her head. "You were there when I really needed you. You brought me back, Carrie. Only you, don't forget that."

Carrie sniffed and lifted her head to look at him, her eyes twinkling with tears. "It was a fucking incredible letter," she said. "It helped me understand so much."


	3. Released

Quinn took a deep breath and told himself to be calm. He could do this. He looked through the viewfinder of his sniper rifle on to the scene below him. He had been holed up on the fire escape of the parking lot across the street for most of the day, muscles cramping, controlling his sparking nerves and waiting. Just like old times.

It was a hot day, and though he had set up in the shade, a droplet of sweat ran down the indentation of his spine, causing him to shiver. He wiped the sweat from his brow, biting his lip absently as he watched a young woman walk past slowly with a dripping-ice- cream- clutching toddler holding her hand on one side and a lead to a dog in her other. The dog was the reason for the dawdling as it seemed intent first on smelling every single crack and then stopped to lick up the ice cream drops melting on the sidewalk the toddler had left before progressing onwards.

Quinn closed his eyes and sat back. He could do this. The ever-present thrum of electricity through his nerves was intensified and causing his hands to shake slightly but he was not concerned. He had been in this position so many times, he knew what was required and he could do it just one more time.

He glanced over his shoulder, he could not see the street beyond but he knew that Carrie would be waiting there for him. At first he had argued that he should do this on his own but she had talked him round, never saying that she didn't believe he could do it but putting forward well reasoned arguments as to why they needed to be on the road as soon as the deed was done to make best use of her extraction plan. And so he had acquiesced, as he always did, not to make her feel better but because she was right, as inevitably she always was. He looked at his watch: 3.15. She would be waiting now with Franny, another point he had argued against but finally given in to because of the time constraints.

If his mark was on time, and in Quinn's experience he almost always was, there was only 5 minutes to wait.

He let out his breath again. The woman, toddler and dog had disappeared and the street was empty, a heat haze hanging lazily above the sidewalk, blurring the view. Quinn played through his mind, for the hundredth time; his retreat through the parking lot and down the steps to the sanctuary beyond. He wondered if he would make it. He had been feeling better and had even been running for a couple of miles each morning with Carrie but he still couldn't control when the seizures came on him and it would be just his luck for one to strike in the next couple of minutes. He shook his head, no, he wasn't going to allow that to happen. He was going to make it because he was not going to let anything take her away from him again, no way.

It was almost a week since the night he had disturbed Carrie, since he had apparently risen from the dead and he had not left her apartment during that time. Instead he had spent the hours making friends with Franny again and slowly reigniting his relationship with Carrie. They were taking it slow, very slow but he had seen nothing that made him believe that they could not really make a success of it this time. He could not mistake the warm feeling deep in his loins whenever he thought about her. It was a feeling he had ignored and subdued around Carrie for years and it felt good to let it grow and flourish, unrestrained at last.

But before he could truly commit, there was one thing that he had to do, one story that he had to complete or his future would be forever in doubt. He was still AWOL from the CIA, still sure that Dar would not let him go. Fuck, Dar had set up the whole travesty of his death to reclaim his asset, his 'headhunter', and it would have worked if not for Carrie. Carrie had told him all about the elaborate plot to make her believe that Quinn was dead. She had even told him that Dar had disclosed some bullshit story about him bring recruited to the CIA at sixteen. His mentor had gone too fucking far this time! And Quinn had begun to realise, as he never truly had before, that Dar would never let him go. If he was serious about getting out, if he refused to be Dar Adal's pawn any more, he would have to take action. 

When he had explained to Carrie what he proposed she had not tried to dissuade him but instantly saw the truth in his reasoning and had thrown herself into the preparation. And Quinn, at that moment, had finally accepted that he really could not love her any more - she got him in ways nobody else ever would. She inhabited the same crazy world that he did. They understood each other completely.

Down the road a large dark SUV with blacked out windows turned to approach the building in front of Quinn. He recognised it and instantly his heartbeat quickened. His mouth dry, he watched as the car eased to a stop in front of him. Quinn bent over his rifle, his finger resting lightly on the trigger; he ignored the tremble and forced himself to breath deeply. A security guard got out of the front of the car and moved to open the back door.

I can do this, Quinn muttered as a familiar figure stepped into the light. Dar Adal stopped to straighten the wrinkles from his suit and another person exited from the car. This one was bigger, a bear of a man, with a bushy beard and spectacles glinting in the bright sunlight.

Quinn hesitated as it suddenly became clear to him what he should do. They had talked about Saul Berenson, he and Carrie, about whether he was implicated in the conspiracy of Quinn's death. Had he known? Carrie had said the older man seemed completely disinterested in Quinn's fate, which she had thought suspicious at the time, but had dismissed because of all the other shit that had been going down in Berlin. Saul had always been more concerned with getting her back into the CIA fold. They had eventually decided that at some point in the future, Carrie would contact her erstwhile mentor and try to negotiate some sort of truce; she had some information from Islamabad that she believed she could use as leverage but Quinn had not altogether believed this was the best option and he had been presented with the perfect opportunity to end it all now. A wronged man with a sniper rifle could change the world and claim back what had been stolen from him.

He looked through the viewfinder at the two men and felt a searing flame of hatred blaze through him. There they were two old men, grown fat on the sacrifice and pain of others. Two leeches that were sucking the humanity out of the country that Quinn still loved. Had they ever done anything but make things worse? Had they ever built anything of worth? Didn't they simply kill and destroy everything, taint everything they touched? What were two more souls to add to the hundreds he had already taken - surely there were not two more deserving cases any where on the planet. Two bullets and Quinn could end it all. 

He could release himself and Carrie. 

It didn't matter what came afterwards, whether he got away, whether he managed to reach Carrie. He had perfect confidence that she would understand what he had done and why he had done it. Like all the crazy things he had done for her, he would do it for love.

This was his moment; he could reclaim the dignity they had so brutally stripped from him with their schemes and plans. He had suffered so much to get to this place, most of it because of their evil machinations. He knew with a solemn certainty, he could do nothing except embrace this opportunity like the true ruthless assassin that they had so artfully created in him. The volatile substance that the medics had feared was about to blow.

The two men were walking slowly up the building steps. With great concentration Quinn centred Dar Adal in the crosshairs of his scope and gently squeezed the trigger. Smoothly, without waiting, he adjusted slightly, and, focusing on Saul, squeezed the trigger and he let the bullet fly....


End file.
